


Suriel

by shieraseastar03



Series: ACOMAF [11]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, Hybern, Revelations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-29 10:55:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19018477
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shieraseastar03/pseuds/shieraseastar03





	1. Chapter 1

The Princess of Adriata awoke, warm and rested and calm. Safe.

  
Sunlight streamed through the filthy window, illuminating the reds and golds in the wall of wing before her, where it had been all night, shielding her from the cold. Rhysand’s arms were banded around her, his breathing deep and even. And Shiera knew it was just as rare for him to sleep that soundly, peacefully.

  
Carefully, she twisted to face him, his arms tightening slightly, as if to keep her from vanishing with the morning mist. His eyes were open when she  nestled my head against his arm. Within the shelter of his wing, they watched each other.

  
What they had done last night…

  
“Why did you make that bargain with me? Why demand a week from me every month?” she said quietly. His violet eyes shuttered. “Because I wanted to make a statement to Amarantha; because I wanted to piss off Tamlin, and I needed to keep you alive in a way that wouldn’t be seen as merciful”. 

 

Shiera’s eyes met his as she gave him a shy smile, “I’m grateful” she breathed, “If it wasn't for the bargain I…” she shook her head, “Thank you, Rhys. For everything”. The HighLord dropped a sweet kiss on her wonderful lips, “I am the one who is grateful, darling. You can’t imagine how”.

  
His wing folded back, and she blinked at the watery light. “Bath or no bath?” he inquired.   
She cringed at the memory of the grimy, reeking bathing room a level below. Using it to see to her needs would be bad enough. 

 

“I’d rather bathe in a stream” she declared, pushing past the sinking in her gut. Rhys let out a low laugh and rolled out of bed. “Then let’s get out of here”.

 

* * *

 

They flew for most of the day, far and wide, close to where the forested steppes rose up to meet the Illyrian Mountains. Her arms tightened around his neck and time to time she pressed her lips again his warm chest, making Rhys heart beat faster and faster so he had to use all his control over the mating bond to try to stay calm. As a reply, he dropped kisses on her dark dense hair and Shiera curled up against his chest even more.

 

Afterwards another clearing, another day of playing with her power. Summoning wings, winnowing, fire and ice and water and now wind. The wind and breezes that rippled across the sweeping valleys and wheat fields of the Day Court, then whipped up the snow capping their highest peaks.

 

She could feel the words rising in him as the hours passed. Shiera had catch him watching me whenever she paused for a break, catch him opening up his mouth… and then shutting it.

  
It rained at one point, and then turned colder and colder with the cloud cover. They had yet to stay in the woods past dark, and the princess wondered what sort of creatures might prowl through them.

  
The sun was indeed sinking by the time Rhys gathered her in his arms and took to the skies. There was only the wind, and his warmth, and the boom of his powerful wings.

  
Shiera noticed his angst and ventured “What is it?”. His attention remained on the dark pines sweeping past. “The story I need to tell you...”. Rhys paused, she waited but he didn’t continue. She put her left hand against his cheek. His skin was chilled, his eyes bleak as they slid to her. “Rhys… I won’t walk away. Never from you” she swore with confidence. 

 

His gaze softened. “Shiera...”. “Rhys. I told you, I trust you. Please…” she begged and he sighed. “Would you want me to tell you now?”. A nod. “Alright then. But not here, we need a safe place”.

 

“But… Our mission? The others…” she muttered. “Don’t worry. I will inform Alec”.

 

Shiera blinked twice, seductively. “And you won’t tell me anything until we arrive at that safe place?” she purred and he let out a dark laugh but before he could reply, Rhys roared in pain, arching against her.

  
She felt the impact, felt blinding pain through the bond that ripped through her own mental shields, felt the shudder of the dozen places the arrows struck him as they shot from bows hidden beneath the forest canopy.

  
And then they were falling.

  
Rhys gripped her, and his magic twisted around them in a dark wind, readying to winnow them out, and failed. Failed, because those were ash arrows through him. Through his wings. They’d tracked them… yesterday, the little magic he had used with Lucien, they had somehow tracked it and found them even so far away...

  
More arrows.

  
Rhys flung out his power but it was too late. Arrows shredded his wings. Struck his legs.

  
And Shiera screamed. Not for fear as they plummeted, but for him, for the blood and the greenish sheen on those arrows. 

 

Not just ash, but poison. A dark wind, his power, slammed into her, and then she was being thrown far and wide as he sent her tumbling beyond the arrows’ range, tumbling through the air… Rhys’s roar of wrath shook the forest, the mountains beyond. Birds rose up in waves, taking to the skies, fleeing that bellow.

  
Shiera slammed into the dense canopy, her body barking in agony as she shattered through wood and pine and leaf. Down and down.

  
Focus focus focus.

 

She flung out a wave of that hard air that had once shielded her from Tamlin’s temper.  Threw it out beneath her like a net. She collided with an invisible wall so solid she thought her right arm might snap.

 

But… She stopped falling through the branches.

  
Thirty feet below, the ground was nearly impossible to see in the growing darkness.   
Shiera did not trust that shield to hold her weight for long.

  
She scrambled across it, trying not to look down, and leaped the last few feet onto a wide pine bough. Hurtling over the wood, she reached the trunk and clung to it, panting, reordering her mind around the pain, the steadiness of being on ground.

  
The princess listened, for Rhys, for his wings, for his next roar. Nothing. No sign of the archers who he had been falling to meet. Who he had thrown her far, far away   
from.

 

Trembling, she dug her nails into the bark as she listened for him.

  
Ash arrows. Poisoned ash arrows.

  
The forest grew ever darker, the trees seeming to wither into skeletal husks. Even the birds hushed themselves.

  
She stared at her palm, at the eye inked there, and sent a blind thought through it, down that bond. “Where are you? Tell me and I’ll come to you. I’ll find you”. There was no wall of onyx adamant at the end of the bond. Only endless shadow.

  
Things… great, enormous things were rustling in the forest.

  
“Rhys”. No response.

  
The last of the light slipped away.

  
“Rhysand, please”.

  
No sound. And the bond between them… silent. She had always felt it protecting her, seducing her, laughing at her on the other side of her shields. And now… it had vanished.

  
A guttural howl rippled from the distance, like rocks scraping against each other. Every hair on her body rose. She took steadying breaths, nocking one of her few remaining arrows into her bow.

  
On the ground, something sleek and dark slithered past, the leaves crunching under what looked to be enormous paws tipped in needle-like claws.

  
Something began screaming. High, panicked screeches. As if it were being torn apart. Not Rhys… Something else.

  
Shiera began shaking again, the tip of her arrow gleaming as it shuddered with her.

  
“Where are you. Where are you. Where are you. Please let me find you. Let me find you. Let me find you”.

  
She unstrung her bow. Any bit of light might give her away.

  
Darkness was her ally; darkness might shield her.

 

Rhys was hurt. They had hurt him. Targeted him. And now… Now …

  
It was not hot anger that poured through her but something ancient, and frozen, and so vicious that it honed her focus into razor-sharpness. And if she wanted to track him, if she wanted to get to the spot she had last seen him… She would become a figment of darkness, too.

  
She was running down the branch just as something crashed through the brush nearby, snarling and hissing. But she folded herself into smoke and starlight, and winnowed from the edge of her branch and into the tree across from her. The creature below loosed a cry, but she paid it no heed.

  
She was night; she was wind.

  
Tree to tree, she winnowed, so fast the beasts roaming the forest floor barely registered her presence. And if she could grow claws and wings… And if her eyes changed like the animals did... 

  
She landed, and the night forest became bright. And the things prowling on the forest floor below…  She didn’t look at them. No, she kept her attention on winnowing through the trees until she was on the outskirts of the spot where they had been attacked, all the while tugging on that bond, searching for that familiar wall on the other side of it. 

 

Then...

  
An arrow was stuck in the branches high above her. She winnowed onto the broad bough. And when she yanked out that length of ash wood, when she felt her immortal body quail in its presence, a low snarl slipped out of her.

  
She hadn’t been able to count how many arrows Rhys had taken. How many he had shielded her from, using his own body.

  
Shiera shoved the arrow into her quiver, and continued on, circling the area until she spotted another, down by the pine-needle carpet.

  
She thought frost might have gleamed in her wake as she winnowed in the direction the arrow would have been shot, finding another, and another. She kept them all until she discovered the place where the pine branches were broken and shattered. 

 

Finally she smelled Rhys, and the trees around her glimmered with ice as she spied his blood splattered on the branches, the ground. And ash arrows all around the site.

  
As if an ambush had been waiting, and unleashed a hail of hundreds, too fast for him to detect or avoid. Especially if he had been distracted with me. Distracted all day.

  
She winnowed in bursts through the site, careful not to stay on the ground too long lest the creatures roaming nearby scent her.

  
Rhys had fallen hard, the tracks told her. And they had had to drag him away. Quickly.   
They had tried to hide the blood trail, but even without his mind speaking to her, Shiera could find that scent anywhere. She would find that scent anywhere.

  
They might have been good at concealing their tracks, but the princess was better. She continued her hunt, an ash arrow now nocked into her bow as she read the signs.

  
Two dozen at least had taken him away, though more had been there for the initial assault. 

The others had winnowed out, leaving limited numbers to haul him toward the mountains, toward whoever might be waiting.

  
They were moving swiftly. Deeper and deeper into the woods, toward the slumbering giants of the Illyrian Mountains. His blood had flowed all the way. Alive, it told her. He was alive, though if the wounds weren’t clotting… 

 

The ash arrows were doing their work. She had brought down one of Tamlin’s sentinels with a single well-placed ash arrow. Shiera tried not to think about what a barrage of them could do. 

 

His roar of pain echoed in her ears. And through that merciless, unyielding rage, she decided that if Rhys was not alive or if he was harmed beyond repair… She didn’t care who they were and why they had done it. They were all dead.

  
Tracks veered from the main group, scouts probably sent to find a spot for the night. Shiera slowed her winnowing, carefully tracing their steps now. Two groups had split, as if trying to hide where they had gone. Rhys’s scent clung to both. They had taken his clothes, then. Because they had known she would track them, seen me with him. They had known she would come for him. A trap, it was likely a trap.

  
The princess paused at the top branches of a tree overlooking where the two groups had cleaved, scanning the ground. One headed deeper into the mountains. One headed along them.

  
Mountains were Illyrian territory, mountains would run the risk of being discovered by a patrol. They had assume that’s where she would doubt they would be stupid enough to go. They had assume she would think they would keep to the unguarded, unpatrolled forest.

 

Shiera weighed her options, smelling the two paths.

  
They hadn’t counted on the small, second scent that clung there, entwined with his. And she didn’t let herself think about it as she winnowed toward the mountain tracks, outracing the wind. She didn’t let herself think about the fact that my scent was on Rhys, clinging to him after last night. He had changed his clothes that morning, but the smell on his body… 

 

Without taking a bath, she was all over him. So she winnowed toward him, toward her. And when the narrow cave appeared at the foot of a mountain, the faintest glimmer of light escaping from its mouth… She halted.

  
A whip cracked.

  
And every word, every thought and feeling, went out of her. Another whip… and another.

 

A whip. A damn whip. The noise brought Shiera a dark cell, Amarntha laughing as she bled…. No, no. That wasn’t Under the Mountain. She was going to save Rhys and even her memories wouldn’t let her save him.

  
She lung her bow over her shoulder and pulled out a second ash arrow. It was quick work to bind the two arrows together, so that a tip gleamed on either end, and to do the same for two more. And when she was done, when she looked at the twin makeshift daggers in either hand, when that whip sounded again… Shiera winnowed into the cave.

  
They had picked one with a narrow entrance that opened into a wide, curving tunnel, setting up their little camp around the bend to avoid detection. The scouts at the front, two High Fae males with unmarked armor who she didn’t recognize, didn’t notice as Shiera went past.

  
Two other scouts patrolled just inside the cave mouth, watching those at the front. She was there and vanished before they could spot her. She rounded the corner, time slipping and bending, and my night-dark eyes burned at the light. She changed them, winnowing between one blink and the next, past the other two guards.

  
And when she beheld the four others in that cave, beheld the tiny fire they had built and what they had already done to him… Shiera pushed against the bond between them, almost sobbing as she felt that adamant wall… But there was nothing behind it. Only silence.

  
They had found strange chains of bluish stone to spread his arms, suspending him from either wall of the cave. His body sagged from them, his back a ravaged slab of meat. 

 

And his wings…

  
They had left the ash arrows through his wings. Seven of them.

  
His back to her, only the sight of the blood running down his skin told her he was alive. And it was enough, it was enough that Shiera detonated.

  
She winnowed to the two guards holding twin whips.

  
The others around them shouted as she dug her iron nails across their throats, deep and vicious, and then with her arrows just like she had done countless times while hunting. One, two, then they were on the ground, whips limp. 

 

Before the guards could attack, she winnowed again to the ones nearest.

  
Blood sprayed.

  
Winnow, strike; winnow, strike.

  
Those wings… Those beautiful, powerful wings...

  
The guards at the mouth of the cave had come rushing in… They were the last to die.

  
And the blood on her hands… This blood … She savored. Blood for blood. Blood for every drop they had spilled of his.

  
Silence fell in the cave as their final shouts finished echoing, and Shiera winnowed in front of Rhys, shoving the bloody ash daggers into her belt. 

 

She gripped his face. Pale… too pale. But his eyes opened to slits and he groaned.

  
The princess didn’t say anything as she lunged for the chains holding him, trying not to notice the bloody handprints she had left on him. The chains were like ice, worse than ice. They felt wrong. She pushed past the pain and strangeness of them, and the weakness that barreled down her spine, and unlatched him.   
  


His knees slammed into the rock so hard she winced, but she rushed to the other arm, still upraised. Blood flowed down his back, his front, pooling in the dips between his muscles.

  
“Rhys” she breathed but almost dropped to her own knees as she felt a flicker of him behind his mental shields, as if the pain and exhaustion had reduced it to window-thinness. 

 

His wings, peppered with those arrows, remained spread, so painfully taut that she winced. 

 

“Rhys… We need to winnow home. I cannot winnow so far, I… I don’t know how to warn Mor or Alec so they can help us… Rhys… Please...” she spoke with her voice breaking. His eyes opened again, and he gasped “Can’t”.

  
Whatever poison was on those arrows, then his magic, his strength…

  
But they couldn’t stay here, not when the other group was nearby. So Shiera said “Hold on” and gripped his hand before she threw them into night and smoke.

  
Winnowing was so heavy, as if all the weight of him, all that power, dragged her back. It was like wading through mud, but she focused on the forest, on a moss-shrouded cave she had seen earlier that day while slaking her thirst, tucked into the side of the riverbank. She’d peeked into it, and nothing but leaves had been within. At least it was safe, if not a bit damp. Better than being in the open, and it was their only option.

  
Every mile was an effort. But she kept my grip on his hand, terrified that if she let go, she would leave him somewhere she might never be able to find, and...

  
And then they were there, in that cave, and he grunted in agony as they slammed into the wet, cold stone floor.

  
“Rhys” she pleaded, stumbling in the dark, such impenetrable dark, and with those creatures around them… She didn’t risk a fire but he was so cold, and still bleeding.

  
She willed her eyes to shift again, and her throat tightened at the damage. The lashings across his back kept dribbling blood, but the wings… “I have to get these arrows out”. He grunted again, hands braced on the floor. And the sight of him like that, unable to even make a sly comment or half smile…

  
She went up to his wing. “This is going to hurt.” She clenched her jaw as she studied the way they had pierced the beautiful membrane. She would have to snap the arrows in two and slide each end out.

  
No, not snapping. Shiera would have to cut it, slowly, carefully, smoothly, to keep any shards and rough bits from causing further damage. Who knew what an ash splinter might do if it got stuck in there?

  
“Do it” he panted, his voice hoarse.

  
There were seven arrows in total: three in this wing, four in the other. 

 

They had removed the ones from his legs, for whatever reason, the wounds already half-clotted.

  
Blood dripped on the floor.

  
She took the knife from where it was strapped to her thigh, studied the entry wound, and gently gripped the shaft. He hissed and she paused with an endless fear in her green eyes.

  
“Do it” he commanded but she doubted, her hands trembling. “Rhys…”, “Do it” he repeated, his knuckles white as he fisted his hands on the ground.

  
She set the small bit of serrated edge against the arrow and began sawing as gently as she could. The blood-soaked muscles of his back shifted and tensed, and his breathing turned sharp, uneven. Too slow…. It was going too slowly. But any faster and it might hurt him more, might damage the sensitive wing.

 

Tears began to fall from her cheeks, seing his pain, his mangled back… A sob escaped from her throat, “I’m… Rhys, I’m so, so sorry…” her voice broke but he shook his head a bit, “Don’t”.

  
Another sob came but she found her will. “Did you know” she said over the sound of her sawing, “that the summer when I turn fifteen, when I arrive at the Mortal Lands, Elain bought me some paint? We’d had just enough to spend on extra things, and she bought me and Nesta presents. She didn’t have enough for a full set, but bought me red and blue and yellow. I used them to the last drop, stretching them as much as I could, and painted little decorations in our cottage”.

  
His breath heaved out of him, and she finally sawed through the shaft. She didn’t let him know what she was doing before I yanked out the arrowhead in a smooth pull.

  
He swore, body locking up, and blood gushed out, then stopped. Shiera almost loosed a sigh of relief. I set to work on the next arrow.

  
“I painted the table, the cabinets, the doorway… And we had this old, black dresser in our room, one drawer for each of us”.

 

She got through the second arrow faster, and he braced himself as she tugged it out. Blood flowed, then clotted. She started with the third. 

 

“I painted flowers for Elain on her drawer” she continued, sawing and sawing. “Little roses and begonias and irises. And for Nesta… ”. The arrow clattered to the ground and she ripped out the other end. She watched the blood flow and stop, watched him slowly lower the wing to the ground, his body trembling.

  
“Nesta” she said, starting on the other wing, “I painted flames for her. I had always loved them but in that moment I felt that they were for her. She was always angry, always burning.   
I think she could love Velaris if she tried and Elain… Elain would like it, too. Though she would probably cling to Azriel, just to have some peace and quiet. Or maybe… I think Lucien, despite everything he has done, maybe Elain could give him that kindness and perhaps he could show her how to have fun”.

  
Shiera finished the fourth arrow and started on the fifth.

  
Rhys’s voice was raw as he said to the floor, “What did you paint for yourself?”. She drew out the fifth, moving to the sixth before saying “I painted the ocean. An endless and turquoise sea. Then I realized that something was missing even if I didn’t know what was it. But suddenly, I felt… I don’t know how to describe it but I felt that my heart was showing me what was missing. So I painted the night sky”.

  
He stilled. She went on, “I painted stars and the moon and clouds and just endless and dark-violet sky”.

 

She finished the sixth, and was well on my way sawing through the seventh before she commented “My mother and I used to watch together how the stars fell in summer, something like Starfall but there were less stars. I had spent my life fearing the darkness but I always felt a deep connection with the stars. Whenever I stared at the ocean or at the stars, I felt that I could love them forever, that I could spend eternity just looking at them”.

 

“When I had to choose what to paint in that drawer, I didn’t know what to paint but I wonder… ”, she pulled out the seventh and final arrow, “I wonder if some part of me knew what was waiting for me. That I would be deep and powerful like the sea and quiet, enduring and as faceted as the night. That I would have beauty, for those who knew where to look, and if people didn’t bother to look, but to only fear it… Then I didn’t particularly care for them, anyway. I wonder if, even in my despair and hopelessness, I was never truly alone. I wonder if I was looking for Prythian, looking for you all. The turquoise sea like… like Tarquin. And the violet sky… like you. Maybe I had spent my life looking for both of you ”.

  
The blood stopped flowing, and his other wing lowered to the ground. Slowly, the lashes on his back began to clot. She walked around to where he was bowed over the floor, hands braced on the rock and knelt.

  
His head lifted. Pain-filled eyes, bloodless lips. “You saved me” he rasped. “You can explain who they were later”. “Ambush” Rhys said anyway, his eyes scanning her face for signs of hurt. “Hybern soldiers with ancient chains from the king himself, to nullify my power. They must have traced the magic I used yesterday… I’m sorry”. The words tumbled out of him. She cupped his face and brushed back his dark hair. That was why she hadn’t been able to use the bond, to speak mind to mind.

  
“Rest” she whispered and moved to retrieve the blanket from her pack. It’d have to do. He gripped her wrist before she could rise. His eyelids lowered. Consciousness ripped from him, too fast. Much too fast and too heavy.

 

“I was looking for you, too” Rhys murmured. And passed out.


	2. Mate

Shiera slept beside him, offering what warmth she could, monitoring the cave entrance the entirety of the night. The beasts in the forest prowled past in an endless parade, and only in the gray light before dawn did their snarls and hissing fade.

  
Rhys was unconscious as watery sunlight painted the stone walls, his skin clammy. She checked his wounds and found them barely healed, an oily sheen oozing from them. And when she put a hand on his brow, she swore at the heat.

  
Poison had coated those arrows and that poison remained in his body.

  
The illyrian camp was so distant that her own powers, feeble from the night before, wouldn’t get them far. But if they had those horrible chains to nullify his powers, had ash arrows to bring him down, then that poison…

  
An hour passed. He didn’t get better. No, his golden skin was pale… paling. His breaths were shallow. “Rhys” the princess said softly. He didn’t move. She tried shaking him. 

 

If he could tell her what the poison was, maybe she could try to find something to help him… He did not awaken.

  
Around midday, panic gripped her in a tight fist.

  
Shiera didn’t know anything about poisons or remedies. And out here, so far from anyone… Would Cassian track them down in time? Would Mor or Alec winnow in? 

 

She tried to rouse Rhys over and over. The poison had dragged him down deep. Shiera would not risk waiting for help to arrive, she would not risk him.

  
So she bundled him in as many layers as she could spare, yet took her cloak, kissed his cheek, and left.

  
They were only a few hundred yards from where she had been hunting the night before, and as she emerged from the cave, she tried not to look at the tracks of the beasts who had passed through, right above them. Enormous, horrible tracks. What she was to hunt would be worse.

  
They were already near running water, so she made her trap close by, building her snare with hands that she refused to let shake.

  
Shiera placed the cloak, mostly new, rich, lovely, in the center of her snare. And she waited. An hour. Two.

  
She was about to start bargaining with the Cauldron, with the Mother, when a creeping, familiar silence fell over the wood. Rippling toward her, the birds stopped chirping, the wind stopped sighing in the pines. And when a crack sounded through the forest, followed by a screech that hollowed out her ears, the princess  nocked an arrow into her bow and set off to see the Suriel.

 

* * *

 

It was as horrific as she remembered: Tattered robes barely concealing a body made of not skin, but what looked to be solid, worn bone. Its lipless mouth held too-large teeth, and its fingers… long, spindly, clicked against each other while it weighed the fine cloak she had laid in the center of the snare, as if the cloth had been blown in on a wind.

  
“Shiera Cursebreaker” it said, turning toward her, in a voice that was both one and many.  She lowered her bow. “I have need of you”.

  
Time, she was running out of time. Shiera could feel it, that urgency begging her to hurry through the bond.

  
“What fascinating changes a year has wrought on you… on the world” it said.

  
A year. Yes, it had been over a year now since she first crossed the wall. A year since she had...

  
“I have questions” she declared as she tried to focus in the present and not in the past she had lost. It smiled, each of those stained, too-large brown teeth visible. “You have two questions”. An answer and an order.

  
She didn’t waste time; not with Rhys, not when this wood might be full of enemies hunting for them. “What poison was used on those arrows?”. “Bloodbane” it said.

  
She didn’t know that poison, had never heard of it. “Where do I find the cure?”.

  
The Suriel clicked its bone fingers against each other, as if the answer lay inside the sound. “In the forest.”

  
She hissed, her brows flattening. “Please… Please don’t be cryptic. What is the cure?”.

  
The Suriel cocked its head, the bone gleaming in the light. “Your blood. Give him your blood, Cursebreaker. It is rich with the healing gift of the High Lord of the Dawn. It shall spare him from the bloodbane’s wrath”.

  
“That’s it?” she pushed. “How much blood?”.

  
“A few mouthfuls will do”. A hollow, dry wind, not at all like the misty, cold veils that usually drifted past, brushed her face. “I helped you before. I have helped you now. And you will free me before I lose my patience, Cursebreaker”,

  
Some primal, lingering human part of me trembled as she took in the snare around its legs, pinning it to the ground. Perhaps this time, the Suriel had let itself be caught. And knew how to free itself, had learned it the moment she had spared it from the naga. A test of honor. And a favor. For the arrow Shiera had shot to save it last year.

  
But she nocked an ash arrow into her bow, cringing at the sheen of poison coating it. “Thank you for your help” she said, bracing herself for flight should it charge at her.

  
The Suriel’s stained teeth clacked against each other. “If you wish to speed your mate’s healing, in addition to your blood, a pink-flowered weed sprouts by the river. Make him chew it”.

 

Shiera fired her arrow at the snare before she finished hearing its words.

  
The trap sprang free. And the word clicked through her.

  
Mate.

  
“What did you say?”.

  
The Suriel rose to its full height, towering over her even from across the clearing.    
“If you wish to… ”. The Suriel paused, and grinned, showing nearly all of those brown, thick teeth. “You did not know, then”.

  
“Say it” she gritted out.

  
“The High Lord of the Night Court is your mate”.

 

Shiera wasn’t entirely sure she was breathing.

  
“Interesting” the Suriel said.

  
Mate.   
Mate.   
Mate.

  
Rhysand was hermate.

  
Not lover, not husband, but more than that. 

 

A bond so deep, so permanent that it was honored over all others. Rare, cherished.

  
Not Tarquin’s or Tamlin’s mate.

  
Rhysand’s.

  
I was jealous, and pissed off …   
You’re mine.

  
The words slipped out of her, low and twisted, “Does he know?”. The Suriel clenched the robes of its new cloak in its bone-fingers. “Yes”.

 

Shiera felt the air leaving her lungs and her heart beating so fast that...

 

The Suriel cocked its head. “You are… You are feeling too much, too fast. I cannot read it”

  
“How can I possibly be his mate?”. Mates were equals, matched, at least in some ways.

  
“He is the most powerful High Lord to ever walk this earth. You are… new. You are made of all seven High Lords. Unlike anything. Are you two not similar in that? Are you not matched?”.

 

Mate. And he knew… he’d known. That was the secret he had kept… Her fists tightened as her lower lips trembled. 

  
She glanced toward the river, as if she could see all the way to the cave, to where Rhysand slept.

  
When she looked back at the Suriel, it was gone.

 

* * *

 

She found the pink weed, and ripped it out of the ground as she stalked back to the cave.

  
Mercifully, Rhys was half-awake, the layers she had thrown on him now scattered across the blanket, and he gave me a strained smile as she entered.

  
The princess chucked the weed at him, showering his bare chest with soil. “Chew on that”. He blinked blearily at her.

  
Mate.

  
But he obeyed, frowning at the plant before he plucked off a few leaves and started chewing. He grimaced as he swallowed. Shiera tore off her jacket, shoved up my sleeve, and strode to him. 

 

He’d known, and kept it from her.

  
Had the others known? Had they guessed?

  
He’d… He’d promised not to lie, not to keep things from her.

  
And this… This most important thing in her immortal existence…

  
She drew a dagger across her forearm, the cut long and deep, and dropped to her knees before him but she didn’t feel the pain. “Drink this. Now”. Rhys blinked again, brows raising, but she didn’t give him the chance to object before she gripped the back of his head, lifted her arm to his mouth, and shoved him against her skin. 

 

He paused as her blood touched his lips. Then his mouth opened wider, his tongue brushing her arm as he sucked in her blood. One mouthful. Two. Three.

  
She yanked back her arm, the wound already healing, and shoved down her sleeve.

 

“You don’t get to ask questions” she began, and he looked up at her, exhaustion and pain lining his face, her blood shining on his lips. 

 

Part of her hated the words, they actually killed her for acting like this while he was wounded, but she couldn’t even think. “You only get to answer them. And nothing more.”

  
Wariness flooded his eyes, but he nodded, biting off another mouthful of the weed and chewing. 

 

She stared down at him, the half-Illyrian warrior who was her soul-bonded partner.

  
“How long have you known that I’m your mate?”.

  
Rhys stilled. The entire world stilled.

  
He swallowed. “Shiera...”.

  
“How long have you known that I’m your mate?” she demanded again, trying to calm her sob.

  
“You… You ensnared the Suriel?”. How he’d pieced it together, she didn’t give a shit.   
“I said you don’t get to ask questions”.

  
She thought something like panic might have flashed over his features. He chewed again on the plant, as if it instantly helped, as if he knew that he wanted to be at his full strength to face this, face her. 

 

Color was already blooming on his cheeks, perhaps from whatever healing was in her blood.

  
“I suspected for a while” Rhys said, swallowing once more. “I knew for certain when Amarantha was killing you. And in the… in the funeral… Before leaving..  I felt it snap into place between us. I think when you were Made, it… it heightened the smell of the bond. I looked at you then and the strength of it hit me like a blow”.

  
He had gone wide-eyed, had stumbled back as if shocked… terrified. And had vanished.   
That had been...

  
Blood pounded in her ears.

 

“You have waited almost a year to...”.

 

He had felt it in the funeral...

  
“Shiera”.

  
“You decided to wait until we returned to Velaris?”. “I wanted to tell you in Starfall but… And then I wanted to today but…”.

  
“Do the others know?”. Rhys hesitated for a moment but then he took a deep breath and said “Yes”.

  
Her face burned. They knew, they... 

 

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she cried. “You were in love with Tarquin, you were married... Then you were going to marry Tamlin and...”. “I deserved to know”.

  
“After everything you have been through… You needed happiness, life. Not a mating bond. And not to someone like me… a mess”. “You promised…. You promised no secrets, no games. You promised” she sobbed.

  
Something in her chest was caving in on itself. Some part of me she had thought long gone.

  
“I know I did” Rhys said, the glow returning to his face. “You think I didn’t want to tell you? You think it didn’t drive me out of my mind so completely that those bastards shot me out of the sky because I was too busy wondering that if told you and then you hated me and run away, or wait, or maybe take whatever pieces that you offered me and be happy with it? Or that maybe I should let you go so you don’t have a lifetime of assassins and High Lords hunting you down for being with me?”. 

 

“If you had told me before…” she began. “What?” Rhys replied, “What would have happened? I wanted you to be safe and happy and after what happened in Starfall… I needed to tell you but I was afraid… Afraid that you would ran away from me, that you would regret that night if you knew…”.

 

She started shaking her head, “I told you, I would never regret that night, I… I would never run away from your power, from you… But you knew from the beginning… You knew it…”.

 

“Shiera” he began, trying to approach her but she moved her head while trembling. “I… I…”

 

She saw the pain and sorrow in his eyes. Saw it and didn’t care, not as that thing in her chest was twisting and breaking. Not as her heart, her heart ached, so viciously that she  realized it’d somehow been slowly repaired in these past few months. 

 

Repaired by him.

  
And now it hurt. It hurt like hell.

 

I hate you. I don’t want to see you anymore. I want you to take me back to Adriata. Rhysand expected her to say those words, he deserved them but instead…

 

“I… I can’t breath” she let out and fell to her knees, her hands covering her mouth as she trembled even more.

 

His hands went  instinctively to her, “Shiera” he breathed but she couldn’t even speak.

 

After a moment she found her voice again, “I can’t be here. I need… I need you to take us somewhere we can talk. Somewhere safe…. Please” she begged with her hands pressed against her chest.

 

Rhys saw all the agony and more on her face, and Shiera saw nothing but agony in his as he rallied his strength and, grunting in pain. They vanished into wind and night as Rhys winnowed them far away.


End file.
